


uneasy lies the head (that wears the crown)

by MathildaHilda



Series: What If; Red Dead Redemption Edition [7]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Morally Ambiguous Character, Non-Canonical Character Death, Non-Canonical Violence, Unreliable Narrator, it's a little chaotic, the boys don't come back from Guarma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 05:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19846996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathildaHilda/pseuds/MathildaHilda
Summary: "Guarma is a beautiful Hell.A Paradise, even, if Paradise switched positions with Purgatory, and only allowed for innocents and damned souls alike.It is beautiful, there’s no doubt about that.They don’t reflect much on it, the ones who end up there.They don’t reflect upon it, because when there is, finally, some cause for peace, most of them are already dead.Alberto Fussar, in all his ill-tempered and cruel glory, will comment that the beaches of Guarma has never been stained with such bloodshed, as it was the day he won the war against the outlaws from the Americas."





	uneasy lies the head (that wears the crown)

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning to this one, and the outline, was written MONTHS ago, but now i finally figured out what to do with it.
> 
> i think

Guarma is a beautiful Hell.

A Paradise, even, if Paradise switched positions with Purgatory, and only allowed for innocents and damned souls alike.

It is beautiful, there’s no doubt about that.

They don’t reflect much on it, the ones who end up there.

They don’t reflect upon it, because when there is, finally, some cause for peace, most of them are already dead.

Alberto Fussar, in all his ill-tempered and cruel glory, will comment that the beaches of Guarma has never been stained with such bloodshed, as it was the day he won the war against the outlaws from the Americas.

~

Sadie muses, in the quiet of the swamps, that she should’ve known.

That she should’ve known, or should’ve assumed the worst, when the first of the newspapers started to fall into their hands, stolen from unassuming and drunk men or purchased with illegally obtained coins, that there was little chance any of them would come back alive.

She should’ve known, she chastises herself. It does no one any good in believing in false, and empty hope.

She breaks the rickety nightstand with a well-aimed kick, shatters it into splinters only usable for firewood, even when the air is so damn thick and soupy that one might both drown and starve in it.

There’s a small pendant, trapped in the cracks of the drawer of the nightstand, and she holds it in her hand before she sells it to a man in a shop down by Saint Denis, some time before they move out.

She gives it away, sells it, and it becomes an empty reminder of the form her hope had taken. It earns her enough money to purchase herself a cartridge of bullets, fashioned in a way that they will make more damage than broken hope ever could do.

Charles suggests it, and they all agree.

They live in solitary quiet for barely a month, before Sadie sends Charles through the skies with a man made of clouds and daydreams, and the ride back, some few days later, is filled with everything John missed out on.

They live in solitary quiet, out of sight and mind from the army that comes to claim the land on which they sleep, and they leave around the same time as Eagle Flies rips the first tent post from the ground.

Charles, on his way South some years later, will tell her of the abandoned sights of the reservation.

He won’t tell her of Eagle Flies’ brave foolishness, or of his father’s brave weakness.

He won’t tell her, and she won’t ask.

~

John – weak and foolish and brave John – tells her where the money’s stashed, once they reach West Elizabeth, and all that is left is the reminder that this is not how it should’ve gone.

It took them far too long to rescue him, to pull him away from the claws of Pinkertons’ and law, and he uses the cane Charles fashioned him far more than he likes to admit. He hobbles around camp, one broken step at a time, and almost burns the cane when he attempts to help Pearson stoke the fire.

It survives, but remains charred and burnt, even after he uses some stolen paint to cover it up.

Sadie brings the money back, gapes at the sight of such wealth, and by the time it’s distributed between them all, there’s still enough left to give them all another share. But, some of it has to stay, for all their sakes, should one get robbed or should resources run low.

Cain the dog steals a chicken from Pearson and almost gets himself turned into a pelt, but survives another day when Jack laughs and kisses the dog’s head.

Pearson merely sighs, and chases Uncle away from the stew instead.

Sadie, in all her quiet leadership that might require some further skills, looks on with a fond smile.

They’re eight men short, once Charles left, some time after John burnt the cane.

Sadie has the notion, that before the year’s done, they’ll be even fewer.

She’s right, by the time November rolls around and John carves his son a wooden dog – it hardly looks like a dog, and it’s hollow eyes could almost give one nightmares, but Jack loves the dog, so they leave it as it is – and she’s barely surprised at all when it’s Karen that stumbles out of camp and doesn’t come back.

Sadie has had the thought before, but now it comes back full force, that the young woman weren’t to remain with them long even if Dutch and the boys ever were to come back.

She stumbles into Blackwater, according to Uncle, and she weren’t stumbling back out.

She had her share of the money with her, all the dollars and all the cents, and Sadie asks Uncle, that if he sees her, just to make sure she’s alright.

She ain’t forcing anyone to stay, no matter how much she likes the woman, but she’ll worry until she gets other news.

(A part of Sadie, that doesn’t know better, wishes for the woman to live a happy life, and perhaps find a man who’ll love her as much as Jake had loved her.

She doesn’t think she’ll get the gift of knowing, or the final gift of her wish.

She hears nothing of the woman, in the years that follow, except for something in a letter from Tilly to John.

She hears another kind of rumor of one Molly O’Shea, one she does know is true, when Tilly writes her after her own wedding, that the young woman found herself on the arm of a good man with wealth and love to spare and to keep.

But that’s all there is to a woman in the end – Sadie thinks when she hears both stories – a drunk one or not.

All there is, is a rumor told in societies that no one’ll ever quite understand.)

~

Guarma has a sun that never seems to stop shining, even in the rain, and barely rain enough to drain the beaches of all its collected blood.

Fussar’s men, bought and hated, collects the bodies of their own, and doesn’t come back for other bodies until the Pinkertons’ arrive on the island and orders the bodies onto a boat.

By then, most of the bodies lack eyes.

By then, barely anyone’s left alive, whether or not they died first, second, or last.

(Whether or not they died, even at all.)

~

Strauss throws the avoided article in her face, the paper nothing more than a crumpled ball, when she corners him and shoves a stuffed bag in his arms.

He catches it, huffs as it hits him in the stomach, and glares at her with beady eyes behind round glasses.

Sadie didn’t think she’d ever throw anyone out for doing their damned job, but Dutch ain’t here and there’s no one left to protect his weaselly little ways anymore.

She bites back a retort, the grieving woman trapped in her mind when she’d come begging for some more and even offered some starved rabbit meat in exchange.

Had she known it was those kinds of people Strauss dealt with, she just might’ve thrown him out weeks before, long before another boy dropped dead because his father was too poor to pay for any treatment.

Had she known; she just might’ve confronted Dutch about it.

(Maybe, she knew.

Maybe, she just didn’t want to think of the people who’d taken her in, as ill-doers and the very worst of men.

The very worst, and the very best, died on an island no one could quite figure out where exactly it was, other than that it was out by some sky-blue waters and white, sandy beaches.)

Strauss throws the article in her face, both in object and word, and she snaps and damn near pulls her gun.

Her anger is still young, still unfed, and Strauss mightn’t be an O’Driscoll, but she almost wishes that he was.

He leaves, seething anger and rat faced, and scurries off to somewhere she don’t care too much for.

She doesn’t pull her gun, doesn’t even lean her hand against the butt of it, and simply glares daggers into him, once he shuffles his feet away and actually, finally, leaves.

Maybe, she should’ve let him stay.

Maybe, she should’ve.

But she doesn’t think she cares enough about him to think twice about it, even after she’s told his final fate.

~

There’s few things that scare a government agent, it seems.

Chasing down outlaws isn’t too bad, so long as you can escape Milton’s smile and mirthless joy, once he stares at the coffins lined up against the wall.

They’re blue lipped, mostly eyeless, and, for the sake of Mister Cornwall’s money, both brainless and heartless.

Even Ross seems to shift his feet and twiddle his thumbs, if only to keep from looking at Milton’s scarred, and joyless face.

An agent outside goes wide-eyed, once the agent barks a laugh.

Dutch van der Linde, stares at him with an empty gaze, and silent, and dead revenge.

Maybe, old Dutch does get what he wants.

Sadie burns the article with the photographs, taken by a nauseous photographer with a handkerchief against his face to keep from barfing up his lunch.

She burns it, and shapes the smoke into another promise.

The promise, shaped like ornate bullets, puts a hole through Mister Milton’s head, not too many years later, when her anger is still young and unfed.

(The anger doesn’t die until she watches Colm O’Driscoll hang.

He hangs, despite the appearance of henchmen, and Sadie doesn’t know why until she captures an O’Driscoll boy outside Hanging Dog Ranch, and asks him a question with a blade to his balls.

The anger dies, old and fed, and Sadie has never felt such exhaustion as she does right then.)

~

John asks Sadie before he asks Abigail, and Sadie shakes his hand and says _‘of course’_.

She’s hardly ever seen such a careful smile on any man, but the limping, thin man is a sorry enough sight at the moment that she can’t quite find it in herself to say no.

John posts a letter at the post office, and waits another two weeks.

Charles writes back, in lopsided writing in both ink and charcoal, and two weeks after that, the Marstons’ leave in a coach bound for the North.

It’s not too much of a surprise, when Miss Grimshaw comes to her. It is a surprise, however, when she asks _her_ if she’s allowed the freedom to leave.

The last of her boys left a week prior, took his family with him, and even though she loves the girls, there’s somethings she wants to do alone.

Sadie doesn’t hold too much love for the matriarch, but she does not hate her. So, she bites the sigh down, and nods, says her _‘of course’_ and her _‘thank yous’_ , and the woman smiles with what seems to genuine hurt and love.

Perhaps, it’s both, or, perhaps Sadie reads it wrong.

Sadie’s left with a photograph, old and worn and loved, and it makes her heart ache in a familiar way. It’s a portrait, taken in a family way, and she doesn’t quite understand why the woman left it to her until she meets her, years down the line, when the woman’s dressed all in blue and sparkling smiles.

Miss Grimshaw _(“it’s Susan, ‘round these parts, Missus Adler.”)_ says she gave it away, to have her remember that this was not how it always were, even if she weren’t there to see it begin to grow.

Arthur and John, young and dumb and carefree, standing like only brothers’ would with one’s arms crossed and another one’s arm lazily leaned against the other’s shoulder.

Dutch and Hosea, looking like any kind of kind fathers, with equal smiles and equal hopes, things Sadie hadn’t quite seen since the O’Driscolls’ kicked down her door in the years previous.

There are some more, some she knows, and some she’ll never know, but it’s a photograph she keeps with her, despite knowing little to none of the history behind the smiles.

She doesn’t compare it the one she finds on Pearson’s wall, but the smiles aren’t quite the same.

~

Perhaps Agent Milton should be happy he took the photographs when he did, because not even some few days later, four corpses have wandered out the door and disappeared.

He kicks down one of the grave markers when he finds them outside Saint Denis, staring back at the city with glee and hate only he can see, but he never does find out where those other four corpses wandered off to.

Sadie Adler does, since she receives a letter about it a few hours after Mary-Beth gives her yet another newspaper where the Pinkertons’ are, _yet again_ , angry over things no one has much control over.

She cracks a smile, jots down the directions and positions in the journal she bought from a bookstore, writes back a reply that is a damn shame no one looks twice on a limping and scarred man.

By the time they decide to travel to the locations where even a bastard like Micah Bell is buried, it’s only three riding women, with some extra horses and guns, and a dog traveling on the open road.

By then, most others have gone a separate route.

Surprisingly, when Sadie looks down at the odd assortments of grave markers, she doesn’t feel much grief over such a development.

Perhaps, the grief she feels is only reserved for they as need it.

Sadie takes Cain with her when she leaves on her own, hugging each girl close and with a smile and a promise to write.

They leave one another under a burning sun that doesn’t quite match the sun of Guarma, and it’s a sun she prefers over any other.

Cain, already old by the time he wandered into Clemens Point, takes three years to die, and by then Bob’s nearly gone too.

(They’d sold most of the boys’ horses, once it became clear they weren’t coming home, and they’d gotten a reasonable sum for a workhorse like Brown Jack and a walker like Boaz.

They got less than they’d liked for The Count, but the buyer argued with the horse’s pale eyes and pink skin beneath the white pelt, and Sadie stopped listening after a while and took the damn money out of his hand and shoved the reins there instead.

Baylock took some convincing for anyone to buy, the horse mean and scarred and seemingly untrustworthy, but a kind enough woman took the horse off their hands with little to no argument, and promised the horse a good-enough home.

Sadie couldn’t quite find it in herself to sell the workhorse Arthur’d bought in Valentine.

So, Fiona stayed far beyond the others’ welcome, and took Bob’s place before, she too, got too old for simple work beyond grazing and living the life worthy of an old horse.)

~

There’s no Micah Bell to chase down in 1907, when she meets John Marston once again.

He doesn’t work under an alias, and instead runs bounties and goods for different people in different towns, until he’s gathered enough courage to ask for a loan and build himself a house.

The house still stands on the grounds of Beecher’s Hope, and Sadie swings by earlier than she herself anticipated, and Charles comes around the bend with another smile and even brows.

Perhaps it is the wrong thing to say, so she doesn’t say it, but most folk she met seemed happier, leaving when and as they did.

She doesn’t quite speak ill of the dead, even though she does speak ill of the living far more times than she can count on two hands, and so doesn’t say much when she gives John Arthur’s satchel.

“Sorry, I kept it from you.” Is all she says, not knowing quite what to say, but John takes it with the hint of a smile, tips his head in thanks and reads the journal for the rest of the day, cane rested against the chair and the pale dog by his feet.

Sadie thinks, that she’s seen such an image before.

She knows, later when she remembers, that that is exactly what she imagined for a haunted man such as John Marston, years before when very little made any sort of sense.

~

When Javier Escuella makes a surprise appearance in the newspapers, yet another one dead in pursuit of the new world, the questions far outnumber the possible amount of answers given from a dead man.

Javier Escuella, hanged for treason, theft and murder, dies in Mexico, far enough away from Guarma that Sadie almost calls Edgar Ross herself – even though she barely knows how the telephone works even a little – if only just to ask him how the Hell he made it off the island.

Either the papers lie on more than one point of interest, or Javier never made it to Guarma and ended up somewhere altogether different.

Either way, there’re no answers left to give when the last man ain’t even alive.

~

It goes a little differently, in that John Marston does not go after former family.

It goes a little differently, in that John Marston does not die outside a precut barn, with his family running for their life.

John Marston still has a daughter in Heaven, and a son at home and a whole heap of family staring holes into his back from either down below or up above.

Abigail Marston dies of a fever, some months before Jack turns nineteen, but John Marston teaches him most that he knows.

There’s little revenge needed; it seems.

Although, John Marston still craves it, when he wakes up from dreams of cannon fire on white, and sandy beaches with smoking plumes of green leaves and burning mangos.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think and maybe, when i'm finally free from work, i'll get around to writing the next part of this little series of mine!


End file.
